


Where We'll Stop Nobody Knows

by pigeonanarchy



Series: i believe in kindness [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, I did my best, god I tried to write the strangery bits of this like mag 165, please appreciate me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24818197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonanarchy/pseuds/pigeonanarchy
Summary: The only one who has a name is here, they see and dance and run around her as she talks. The woman - Sasha, is her name - she walks against the flow to go to somewhere with a purpose that the ones who lack a name and face can never know.She leaves the place they all are trapped and still the dance and chase go on. They twirl and whirl upon the ride that takes and does not give and still it all turns on and on.And then it shudders. Halts.-And spins again, but not before some three could look and see and know. This person is not that person is not this other person.
Series: i believe in kindness [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1770628
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Where We'll Stop Nobody Knows

_Is this my face?_ They ask, and rip and tear and try to fit it on - it stretches out, it warps and pulls and does not fit but still it sits more comfortably than air upon their bare and flexing flesh. It’s not their face, they know by now, but as they reach to tear them down they do not want to go and so they hold it close and fear the fall as every them has done before.

The horse - in plastic, frozen pain - it rises up and lifts away their prey, they’re safe, for now. They clutch the skin and rise above the tearing ripping hands that are, in truth, as much their self as that which now escapes above. There is no difference - not, at least, the sort that anyone could tell by looking.

Their face is torn, the edges worn away to be more ragged than before. The one who wins bears away the prize; the one who doesn’t left to lie along the spinning, turning ground. Are they the one who flees away to wear the face in hope that here and now - _for just this once_ \- the skin they’ve found will fit? Or do they lie and wait for one whose time to run is near its end and as they trip, they reach towards their prize and pull?

They do not know, but still they fear that moment when their barest bit of self is lost. Who they are they do not know but still they want to _be._ And so they cling and tear and pull and fear and hope and know that one wrong step in here, this fast and frantic dance, will land them back upon the floor with all that they have gained yet lost again as still they take what face they can and clamber back upon their feet and run.

The only one who has a name is here, they see and dance and run around her as she talks. The woman - Sasha, is her name - she walks against the flow to go to somewhere with a purpose that the ones who lack a name and face can never know.

She leaves the place they all are trapped and still the dance and chase go on. They twirl and whirl upon the ride that takes and does not give and still it all turns on and on.

And then it shudders. Halts.

-

And spins again, but not before some three could look and see and know. This person is not that person is not this other person. If I can look at you, and you are separate from me, then you are not me and I am not you, and in this way they three define themselves. These other bodies around might be either of the two who they aren’t, though, with no way to tell the difference, and so before the merry-go-round restarts they take each other’s hands.

I spin and run but now I know I’m me. This sticks, like nothing has, between each rise and fall. I _know_ I’m me because that’s who the only one who’s standing where I know I’m standing is. My right hand clutches at their hand - the one who holds my hand and also that of someone other on their other side. This someone other is the one whose right hand only grasps at air but still their left hand anchors them.

The middle one cannot now reach but I - because I am myself and no one besides me can pick and choose who my self is - decide that to be kind is part of who I want to be and so the next skin I can reach I do not keep but pass to them to wear and be. The person on the right has clearly had that thought as well - I laugh, I think, because when we are now two separate people, we still choose the same, at least on this. If they laugh too I do not hear but still they drop the skin they’d found to help our center put one on.

The next I find I try to give away as well, but am rebuffed and so I pull and fit it to my face. We do not fear the loss so much but still we run because we do not know what else there is to do. A piece of skin may be how we have always known ourselves but now we have another way and so the first is free to go. It’s still convenient, though, and so we pull and twist and get a third that finally the right accepts and now what?

The three of us have faces now, like we have always sought, and more important, all of us have selves that won’t be lost when someone else who isn’t us just reaches up and takes. But what to do with all this that we’ve never known to have before? I feel a tug and turn to go and there the edge of all we know appears to loom more like a wall and not that which it truly is - a lack, an absence, empty air.

It scares me still - the torn and twisted, shattered remnants of the ones who tried to leave - and yet I know I am not them. I’m me.

-

The three tumble to the ground, rolling away from the merry-go-round that had been all they’d known. They live, because their senses of self can stand outside, even if those senses of self are still small and frail. They don’t collapse, as others have, because they know who they are well enough to stand.

Their injuries will never heal - not all the way, their skins will always seem to pull awkwardly, their scars will always be red and angry where their seams are - but they are people-shaped, and people-enough to live and that will be good enough. The sky watches as they pull each other to their feet and meet eyes as people - well and truly people - for the first time.

Will they all still fit together, now that they have selves outside the identity that they three stitched together out of their acquaintances? Will they get along? Will they be friends? There’s only one way to find out, though.

-

“Ah, hi, I guess? Is- no. My name is Quill. I’m Quill,” the one on the left says.

“Oh! I’m Paul,” says the one on the right.

The one in the middle looks worried, and says, “Ah- I was going to be Paula, but if you’re Paul, should I-”

“It should be fine, I think. If it’s the name you want, we can make it work,” Paul replies.

Paula smiles. “Oh, thanks. Wait, what are you guys’ pronouns? I think I want to be a girl, so she and her, right?”

“That sounds right, I think. I was thinking I’d go with they and them,” Quill says..

Paul blinks. “Damn, I forgot about those. Um, uh, fuck. Hang on I need to think-”

**Author's Note:**

> i need comments so i have the strength to get my brain to solidify again because it liquefied while i was trying to write this


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